


Under Neon Lights

by imustspeakmyheart



Series: Clothed In Light [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Softe Gays only in this house of mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imustspeakmyheart/pseuds/imustspeakmyheart
Summary: There’s nothing particularly beautiful about the scene, the lights and shadows cast on Peter’s face more uncanny than anything, and yet… Juno thinks it might be the way Peter’s laugh is so unguarded, his posture relaxed and his face so distinctly Peter Nureyev that every time he looks at it, it takes his breath away.---This time it's Juno who gets to look at Peter and be gay, or, A Study in Light Part Two





	Under Neon Lights

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to With Golden String, but both can be read separately from each other.
> 
> I wrote this while procrastinating on my thesis and it's not beta read, but I hope you still enjoy!

They’re in Juno’s apartment after he picked Peter up from the shuttle port. It had been an affair involving much desperate kissing, scrambling for the car followed by a half-stumble to the apartment building. They hadn’t seen each other in months; one of Peter’s latest heists hadn’t gone according to plan and he’d had to spend some time laying low. Juno had offered for him to do that laying low business at home with him, but Peter had steadfastly refused.

That meant there had been a lot of emotion involved  in their reunion -there always was, but this was different- and they had seemed to both be having the same idea of what they’d like to be doing back at the apartment. Peter had no trouble pushing Juno into his, _their_ , bedroom until he broke off into a very drawn out yawn that had them both laughing. Tomorrow, had been their compromise. They’d put on a stream to watch and curled up on Juno’s threadbare couch, leaning close and hands entwined.

In the end it’s Juno who ended up dozing off, lulled by the ambient sounds of the stream and Peter’s thumb rubbing patterns into the back of his hand. When he comes to a little bit, he sees Peter still watching the stream, though his angle is a little bit lower than he can remember. The lights in the room have been turned off, so the only source of light is the screen.

Juno blinks, but keeps still except to tilt his head a bit and sees that he’d drifted more toward the other side of the couch. Or maybe Peter had gently moved him so he was laying down a bit more and wouldn’t be hindered by the screen flashing into his face so much. That thought makes his face heat, his eyes turning back to Peter.

His face is lit from the front by the flickering images of the stream, though there is a shifting neon coloured glow at the edges of him, filtered through the shutters from outside. Something funny must be happening on the screen, because Peter snorts, moves to muffle the sound with his hand and reaches his other one out to Juno to card through his hair without looking. He supposes their entwined hands had come undone during Juno’s little nap.

Juno is awestruck, struggles to keep his breathing steady as Peter pets his hair, no doubt to soothe him should the sudden loudness of that laugh have startled him out of sleep. There’s something so surprising about the gesture, somehow. Juno can’t quite put to words what he feels, Peter’s fingers running gentle and almost rhythmic patterns over his scalp. Maybe it’s the fact that Peter didn’t even glance at him as he did it, just reached his hand out with the confidence that it would be enough to lull him back into his dreams.

The familiarity of it makes Juno think that perhaps this happened often, Peter still awake while Juno slept, a self-proclaimed guardian of the scant hours Juno managed each night. His own restless nights are mostly the cause of a mind turned toward work, endlessly turning over cases in his mind because he can’t think to do otherwise. Hyperion City never sleeps and Juno lives and breathes along with his city. Peter, though, is an insomniac who’s lucky to get five hours of sleep on a good day, which makes guilt bloom at the edges of his thoughts.

Juno shakes it off. He doesn’t know what Peter gets up to while Juno sleeps and he’s grateful for having witnessed the moment. He’s grateful, too, that Peter hasn’t looked away from the stream yet so he can keeping looking at him unobserved.

As he watches the lights swim across Peter’s features, the hand in his hair stills and stays there. Something has captivated Peter’s attention on the screen and he’s watching very intently. Juno can almost see the minute movements of his eyes, following the action. Then he laugh-snorts again, traces his thumb across Juno’s temple a few times.

Juno has no idea what Peter’s even watching, the volume turned to a murmur. Sounds from outside penetrate into his apartment as always, yells and car horns and distant music, but still Juno feels blanketed by the muted voices on screen that seem to create their own universe around them.

There’s nothing particularly beautiful about the scene, the lights and shadows cast on Peter’s face more uncanny than anything, and yet… Juno thinks it might be the way Peter’s laugh is so unguarded, his posture relaxed and his face so distinctly Peter Nureyev that every time he looks at it, it takes his breath away.

He thinks, that’s just it, isn’t it. He’s so irrevocably and completely in love with Peter Nureyev. Of course, whenever they leave the sanctuary of Juno’s apartment some other personality was bound to come into the mix. Juno understands that, welcomes it because it means that Peter will be safer. In any case, he finds pieces of Peter in any of his aliases, as much as he tries to keep each one original. He loves each of them, too, for the solid and unchangeable fact that he loves the man underneath with his whole being.

Right now, though, watching Peter enjoy a stupid stream while curled up on the couch with no reason to pretend? It was all Juno could do not to stare, open-mouthed. Barely. This microcosm of domesticity, their own little pocket of space and time that existed only for them, Juno was intoxicated by it.

Everything about Peter Nureyev is intoxicating, from his mannerisms to the graceful curve of his legs now starkly silhouetted in neon green, then in blue. The gentle waves of his short hair, now slightly mussed in the most charming way due to long hours of travel, make Juno desperately want to reach out and touch it. The dark makes everything about him sharper, more pronounced as every movement of him is punctuated by the light moving over his frame. Juno drinks everything in with a thirsty desperation, catalogues it in his mind how Peter’s eyes catch the artificial light, how it pools in the laugh lines that surround them.

There’s just something uniquely captivating about Peter, here, in his shitty apartment in Hyperion. Juno thinks it must be because he never thought he’d have this, never in a million years. Yet there he is, a masterpiece painted in colours that only Hyperion could supply, showing a face that only Juno gets to see.

Peter smiles, lets out a little breath through his nose and turns his face. Juno is too busy staring, too captivated by the halo of bright pink that lights Peter from behind to fully process the action. Leaned into Juno halfway, Peter stills, catches Juno’s eyes staring back at the same time that Juno snaps out of his reverie.

There’s a moment where Peter just stares at him, as if caught doing something he shouldn’t be by someone he hadn’t expected to be caught by. It occurs to Juno that he’d been leaning it to kiss Juno, his forehead perhaps, or his cheek. Then Peter’s expression shifts into one of amusement and he shakes his head a little, quickly pecking Juno on the lips before he leans back.

“Juno! Have you been awake this whole time?” Juno thinks he’ll never get tired of the way Peter’s eyes wrinkle just so when his smile is genuine.

Pushing himself up, Juno shifts and heaves his legs up onto the couch so he sit cross-legged, one knee touching Peter. It occurs to him to lie, just for second, but he shrugs and smiles a bit sheepishly.

“Not for too long, haven’t exactly been keeping count.” He puts a hand on Peter’s thigh, traces a line of purple light that shifts into clear white. Peter glances at the screen, then back at Juno.

“Too busy staring, hmm? I have been told I cut quite the striking silhouette.” Peter smirks, takes Juno’s hand from his thigh and starts playing with his fingers. It’s Juno this time who leans in for a kiss, lips soft and gentle, for the sole reason that it’s unfair for Peter to be so beautiful.

“You got me there,” Juno whispers against the corner of Peter’s mouth “so sue a lady for having a gorgeous boyfriend he can’t help but stare at.”

Peter laughs delightedly and Juno can feel the vibration of it, the breath on his cheek.

“Gorgeous?”

“Mhmm” Juno kisses him again, shifts to straddle Peter’s legs. “And Handsome.”

“Oh, do go on.” Peter’s hands travel up Juno’s legs, to his hips. One index finger traces patterns onto his side.

“Ethereal, glorious, beautiful.” The light of the screen is blocked by Juno’s form so only the neon lights tell Juno where Peter’s lips are, shining blue through the shutters. He cards his hands through Peter’s hair and it feels like ocean waves.

“Flatterer.” Peter says, closing the distance once again, smiling brightly in the dark.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you so so much for reading and I hope you liked it! Comments and kudos always greatly appreciated <3


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